Are British mass smarter and more informed than Americans ? accord to a new study , many Americans seem to conceive so , and it may come down to a simple dispute in how we use a common word .

Oscar Wildefamously notedthat British and American multitude “ have really everything in mutual … except , of course , language ” . While this wit may seem flippant , it may actually have a significant breaker point .

A team of researchers at Rutgers University , New Jersey , have examined how American and British English speakers utilise “ good ” as a response particle in conversation . They found that Americans tend to apply “ correct ” to show they already have knowledge of a subject or spot , and that they are informed about it . However , British English Speaker apply “ right ” to indicate that the information they are receiving is interesting and relevant to the treatment .

The discussion “ correct ” belongs to a specific class of lingual devices that are sometimes called “ reception tokens ” or “ response particles ” . These register , signal agreement , or take a status toward the info they reply to . However , despite its common utilisation as a reaction particle , there has been surprisingly small research into “ right ” in this context .

To an American , the elbow room British masses employ “ correct ” make them go like they already recognize what is being enjoin , leading them to appear more informed than they necessarily are . In summation , the British accent carries with it a stereotype of sophistication that also , according to many Americans , makes the loudspeaker voice more thinking . The situation is made worse ( for Americans at least ) by the fact the British utilisation “ right ” quite a lot more in conversation .

The Rutgers team was to begin with inspired when they overheard a “ puzzling mistaking ” between an American and a British person during a conversion . During the conversation , the American was explaining a situation that prompted the “ right ” response from the listener , but this confused the American who asked whether this selective information was already known , to which the British listener responded with a confused “ no ? ” .

to study this phenomenon , the team usedConversation Analysis , a method acting that hit the books societal interaction and public lecture - in - interaction , to see the purpose of “ good ” in American and British interaction . They draw on a collection of around 125 canned segment of everyday conversation and piece of work discussion from a historical span from the seventies to the nowadays . Within this collection of segments , 70 were in British English and 55 in American English .

The enquiry “ sheds light on how infinitesimal lingual differences , which we might not even recognise , impact our interactions with others and colour our perception of their expertness and cognition , ” Galina Bolden , professor of communication at Rutgers , said in astatement .

The work give away the different way Speaker can demonstrate their epistemic stances – how they relate to and place claim to dissimilar character of knowledge . The research also has authoritative methodological implications for using Conversation Analysis on cross - cultural and intercultural communications . It could be a utile way to probe different varieties of English and other language .

The subject authors state that future employment could “ try out the entire landscape of these form of response particle ( in exceptional attitude ) in the U.S. vs. U.K. datum with an eye towards the kinds of stances they convey vis - a - vis prior lecture ( i.e. what exactly they do internationally ) . Such depth psychology might enable investigator to explore whether the dispute between the two nomenclature miscellany are in the main lingual or cultural . ”

The cogitation was put out inthe Journal of Pragmatics .